Confessions of an overworked, sleep-deprived mother
Having 5 kids who are 8 and under is rough and I’m not keeping up.
Thomas is sweet and adorable and I love him to pieces. Sometimes I think that he’s such a perfectly wonderful baby that I will be sad if I never get to experience all the wonderful things about having a baby again. He lets me hug and cuddle him just about anytime I want. He loves when I sing or talk to him. There’s something about the way that he looks at me that just makes me melt. He smiles all the time and hardly ever cries, but he has me wrapped around his little finger.
You’d think by the time I had my 5th baby, I’d have things all figured out. Maybe I’m just a pushover. Thomas loves to be near me. When I’m working in the kitchen, I sit him in his Bumbo and give him toys to play with. He’s mostly happy in the Bumbo for awhile, I just have to give him a toy every so often. Sometimes I sit him on the floor to play. If I put my generic boppy-like pillow around him and a few more pillows in key places he can sit up and play with toys for awhile. He likes to sit up and play, but he falls over within a few minutes and needs someone to sit him back up. When he falls over he lands softly on the pillow and will continue to play with a toy in his hand sometimes, but sometimes he just turns over and gets mad that he can’t reach his toys anymore. He will enjoy sitting up and playing with toys for a little while as long as someone helps him sit back up regularly. He does not like laying on his back or his tummy to play for very long (maybe a minute or two, a little longer if I play with him). So all day long, whatever I do, Thomas is right there needing regular attention. He takes short naps, but they almost always happen at meal times. He falls asleep just in time for me to make something for the other kids to eat and he wakes up before I’ve finished cleaning up from the meal.
As you can imagine, I have a very hard time getting anything done. I haven’t figured out how to clean a bathroom when he’s awake and he doesn’t ever sleep long enough for me to get started cleaning the bathrooms. He will tolerate a few minutes strapped into his bouncer upstairs while I switch the laundry and start a new batch, but he’s not happy in there long enough for me to clean the laundry room, sweep the floor upstairs or vacuum. The only chore that I get done upstairs on a regular basis is washing clothes and sometimes the only way to get that chore done is to let him cry for a few minutes while I switch the laundry in the washer or dryer.
I do a little better downstairs, but I still struggle to keep things clean while he’s in the Bumbo or propped up with pillows. He never sleeps long enough during the day to get a good rhythm going on any chores.
I check my email regularly and read things on my computer while I nurse him, but I’m not very good at typing while he’s in my arms, so I regularly forget to respond to someone’s email for a few days by which time I’m sometimes embarrassed to reply so late.
We start the bedtime routine for the other kids at about 7:30 each night. Thomas is usually awake and wants attention while Zach puts the other kids to bed and it regularly takes me two hours before he falls asleep for the first time. By this time it’s 9:30 and it’s the first time all day I can do something by myself. Often I still have to finish cleaning up from dinner. I usually try to take a shower at my first opportunity since I can’t figure out how to take one during the day when any of the kids are awake. I try to catch up on as many chores as I can after bedtime. It’s the first time all day I don’t have to fight to get something done. I fold my mountain of laundry, sweep the floor, pack Zach’s lunch, load pictures on my computer and sort and organize them, ect. Thomas wakes up every few hours, eats and then falls right back to sleep. I usually go to bed way too late and at some point Thomas wakes up and I’m so tired that instead of putting him back in bed, I lay on the couch and fall asleep feeding him. For the rest of the night, I sleep with him in my arms and I nurse him whenever he wakes. I honestly couldn’t even tell you how often he wakes up or what his longest stretch of time sleeping is because I’m always too tired to keep track.
Now add to that the 4 other kids I have and you can see why I feel completely overwhelmed right now.
What do people do with their babies so that their whole lives are not taken over by them? Should I put Thomas down and let him cry himself back to sleep until he’s been in bed for at least an hour or two? (Some of my kids naturally took better naps during the day). Do I need to let him cry on a blanket on the floor for a little while until he learns to enjoy playing on the floor? I keep thinking I need to let him cry himself back to sleep at night so that he start sleeping through the night soon. (Why do all my possible solutions involve letting him cry? I instantly feel stressed out when he cries, so I try to avoid letting him cry often).
I’ve written enough and should probably just end my post here, but I’ve left out so much of the other things that I worry about.
I need to work more/better with Nicole. I’ve written about her communication problems before. She’s a little odd and I sometimes struggle to figure out how much of her oddity is personality and how much of it is disordered. I have a hard time getting her to pick up her toys and I can’t tell if she’s being stubborn or not understanding my request. I need to spend more time figuring out how to get her to follow directions. I hope to start evaluating her knowledge of letters, numbers, colors and other such things once school starts for the other kids so that I can help her be better prepared for Kindergarten in a year.
Nicole regularly has bad ideas that turn into big messes, so I try to keep tabs on her all day.
I have been struggling to potty train Nicole for almost a year. I started last August and she has had some success with #1 as long as I remind her, but if I don’t tell her to use the potty at regular intervals, she pees her pants. She never just goes in the bathroom and pees without me telling her to and she usually wets her pants at least once a day, more times if I’m distracted. If I’m really diligent about sending her all day she will stay dry. She’s even worse with #2. In the year that I’ve been potty training her, she has gone #2 in the potty 2 times and both of them were when her Father kept sending her back to the bathroom and wouldn’t let her out until she’d gone #2 (this method is new this week and has worked 2 times so far and has failed at least twice). During the last part of my pregnancy, I took a break from intensive potty training and put her back in diapers for a little while. Just before she turned 4, I put her back in underwear except for night time. So she’s been in underwear exclusively since May and I have had to clean up every one of her bowel movements (except those 2 I mentioned earlier) and usually a pair of wet pants everyday. I have tried sticker charts and other bribes without much success. Now she’s 4 and has one more year before kindergarten.
I worry that I should be doing more with Isaac and Charlotte. Isaac often spends too much time on his computer and Charlotte goes out to play with the neighbor boy too much.
Ila loves movies and I give in and let her watch them too much instead of helping her play with toys partly because it’s easier. I should also give her a time limit on eating because she sometimes spends over an hour in her chair for a meal.
I need to be teaching my kids how to do chores and requiring them to help more, but I feel so stressed and so tied down to Thomas, that I can’t seem to find a moment to organize my thoughts and get them going. I’ve let them slack off so much that they feel entitled to large amounts of playtime with little responsibility.
Despite the fact that I work all day and stay up too late doing chores, I can’t find the time to do all the things I need to do.
Anyway, it’s late and I’ve still got a mountain of laundry to fold, a lunch to pack and some things to get ready for our outing tomorrow.
Kathleen, be kind to yourself! You know how the scriptures talk about forgiveness? It applies to yourself as well. 5 YOUNG children with endless lists of things to do would be difficult for anyone. Maybe give yourself a few months of leeway. Recognize that this is difficult & tiring and that the reward of a mother cannot always be measured which leaves one feeling unappreciated, tired and feeling like you can’t measure up. I bet if you just said, “I am going to focus on A, B & C for the next 3 months” and forgive myself for the rest, that you would feel a lot better. Just focus on the really important things. It is only 3 months in their development. It will not effect them the rest of their lives. Maybe you should sit down and watch a movie with Ila… guilt free. :) Take it from a mom who isn’t always forgiving of herself, but is working on it. It WILL get better. Love you!!!
BTW, I am expecting my 4th in October/ November so will you remind me to forgive myself in a few months? :)
First, I want to say that you are doing a great job with 5 kids. I read your blog and I’m amazed at what a great mom you are. I only have 2 and I turn the TV on way more than I’d like to admit, but sometimes that’s the only way to get Henry out of my hair while I tend to Evelyn.
As for the issues with Thomas, I have some tips that helped me with Henry. Henry was an awful sleeper for the first 4 months of his life. I was so sleep deprived that I thought I was suffering from post-partum depression and was very close to getting on medication for it (which I did NOT want to do). My last ditch effort was to get Henry sleeping well so I could get enough sleep. As soon as Henry was sleeping well, I felt sane for the first time in 4 months. Here’s what I did:
First, naps are crucial. Henry would take about 4 catnaps a day, but no longer than 20-40 minutes. I learned later that babies need 2-3 long naps per day. I started working on the naps first, because I had read that if the naps aren’t in place, it disrupts their night sleep. I had a short routine for putting him to bed (sing a song and rock for less than 5 minutes). I tried to keep nursing out of the equation because I didn’t want him to feel like he needed to nurse to fall asleep. At first, I had specific times that I would put him in his crib to sleep (9am, 12pm, and sometimes 4pm for a short 30 min nap, just to get him to bed time). Here comes the hard part, if he didn’t go to sleep on his own, I would let him cry for up to 1 hour. I kept myself busy at that time and away from his room. I could still hear him, but it wasn’t as piercing. Sometimes he would fall asleep after 30 minutes, so I would let him sleep as long as he could (but I wouldn’t get him until at least an hour). Other times, he cried for the whole hour. But within a few days (maybe a little over a week), he was consistently taking naps and his naps started to stretch out. Once he was pretty consistent at his naps, I didn’t follow the time schedule, but I watched him for drowsiness signs and put him to bed before he was overly tired (and no longer than 2 hours of wakefulness).
Once he was taking better naps, his nighttime sleep was a little better, but not what I wanted it to be. He had stretched his sleep to about 2 1/2 to 3 hours. To help him sleep in longer stretches, I set a feeding “time limit”. The reason I felt he was waking up was simply because he was used to being fed. It’s kind of like…if you have lunch everyday at 11 am and then you had to change your routine so that now you get lunch at 12:30, it would be an adjustment and you’d probably be hungry from 11 – 12:30 for a few days, but you’d get used to it. I felt like this was the case with Henry. So here’s how I got him to sleep in longer stretches without disrupting my sleep too much.
First, I set a time limit of 2 1/2 hours for the first few nights. From the beginning of one feeding until the beginning of the next, I would wait 2 1/2 hours. If he woke up before then, I would let him cry until that 2 1/2 hour mark. Usually it was about 20-30 minutes. Then a few days later, I stretched it to 3 hours. He actually responded really well to this. The first time, he cried for the 30 minutes and then I fed him. Then he woke up 2 hours later, ready to eat. I let him cry, but he cried for, like 28 minutes and then fell asleep for another two hours. So when he woke up, I immediately went in and fed him. The next night, he slept for a much longer stretch (I dont’ remember how long, I just remember that it was long enough that when he woke up, I immediately fed him and he didn’t need to cry). Within a few days, he was sleeping in 4-5 hour stretches and that’s where I kept him until he was about 9 months old. At that point, I did the same thing until he was sleeping through the night (12 hours).
The other bit of advice that I think helps is an early bed time. With both Henry and Evelyn, we implemented a 6:30/7:00 bedtime starting around 3 months. Henry was more difficult to get on that schedule because he was used to waking up so frequently. But Evelyn slipped right into it. By 4.5 months, Henry was sleeping from 6:30 to 6:30 (waking up every 4-5 hours to feed). Evelyn (now 4 months) sleeps every night from 6:30 to 6:30 waking up at 11:00, 3:00, and sometimes 5:00 for a small snack.
For the most part, Henry only cried for up to 30 minutes (there were a few times that he cried longer, but I’d say only 2-3 times). At the times when he did cry for an extended period (10 minutes or longer), I would spend extra time cuddling and loving him afterward.
Henry & Evelyn are both great sleepers, and I really attribute it to making sure they get enough sleep (although, I do believe Evelyn’s personality is partly the reason she’s a good sleeper). It sounds counter-intuitive, but sleep begets sleep. The more sleep they get, the more they sleep. The less sleep they get, the more difficulty they have sleeping.
I know some people are very against letting their child cry. I know it is hard to listen to (and there have been times that I just couldn’t handle it and I’d give up on my plan for the day and start over the next day). But I had to decide which was healthier: not allowing my child to cry and being sleep deprived and depressed, or letting my child cry (usually no longer than 1 hour) so that, in the long run, I could be a better rested (and much happier) mother. Trust me, I tried everything…..I read multiple books on getting your child to sleep without crying, but I was desperate. Most of the no-cry methods take a long time to fully work and I was so tired that I didn’t have time. The book I ended up liking the best was “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child”.
But like I said, I think you are doing a great job. You have to find what works for you. These are just the tips that worked for me.
I hope it helps!
Amber
As I’ve been thinking, I wanted to add something else. Recently, I haven’t been as diligent with Evelyn’s nap schedule and I’ve noticed that she is much happier and willing to play on her own when she is well rested. Once she reaches that 1.5-2 hour mark, she is much more demanding and won’t play on her own, she’ll cry if I leave her, and she just wants to be held. It makes getting things done much more difficult.
I also wanted to add that 5 kids definitely adds a much more difficult aspect to all of this that I haven’t dealt with yet. I realize that it’s hard to keep an infant on a schedule with so many naps when you have older kids that are going places and need your attention in other ways. I don’t want you to feel like you aren’t doing a good job if your baby isn’t napping. You really are doing a great job and all you can do is your best. If it doesn’t work for you, try something else. Hopefully you will find something that can help you get more sleep and still fit in with the demands of being a mother to 5. Don’t lose hope!
Thanks cousins! I have done the cry-it out method at night when my kids are 6 months old (Thomas is about a week and a half short of 6 months). It’s torture to listen to, but after a few nights, it’s so nice to sleep through the night! But I’ve never done it during the day. I look forward to trying it–I’m excited at the prospect of having an hour off of Thomas duty during the day.
Also, thanks to both of you for your votes of confidence–it really means a lot!
I’m sorry you’re having such a rough time! I feel this way a lot. I hope you’re doing better.
I’m sure you’re already doing a lot of these things but if not, they might help.
I think having your kids help out with chores would help. But I remember being a small child and not understanding how to clean a room. Maybe posting a laminated checklist (with pictograms or words your older kids can read) of tasks to clean the room could help. Things like put dirty clothes in the laundry, put the toys in the box, put dirty dishes in the kitchen, hang up towels, clean the mirrors, etc. Put all the kid-safe cleaning supplies in an accessible basket in each room. Focus on helping them learn to do just one of these tasks well at a time so they don’t feel overwhelmed by trying to be perfect. And then accept their efforts and rest assured it will all be clean in the end.
With school starting, we’ll probably be doing a whole Family Home Evening reminder about chores and routines since we’ve slacked off during the summer. Doing chores is part of being in a family and they need to help out. My mom also recently made “chore dice” to help make assigning chores (and a reward afterward) fun: http://www.waywardgirlscrafts.com/2012/08/do-or-die-chores.html
If Thomas really needs you all that time, you could try a baby carrier, too. But learning to play independently wouldn’t be a bad thing, either.
This might sound counterintuitive, but a to-do list might help so that when you do get a few baby-and-chore-free minutes, you can remember the tasks you wanted to do earlier. It’s been hard for me to remember some of these things unless I write them down. I’ve also learned to assign them a specific time, like I’ll reply to that email at 1:15, when Rachel’s in her nap. Keeping those tasks small and specific helps (though that’s hard, too).
I try to have a little one-on-one time with each child each day: maybe 20 minutes. Rachel’s one-on-one is usually snuggling with her to get her ready for her nap, for example. During the school year, Hayden’s is telling me about his day (well, it’s me extracting information from him about his day). If I were a really good mom, I’d use Rachel’s nap to get in that one-on-one time with the other kids, but I’m not quite that good.
(Side note: the page kept reloading when I tried to write my comment. I finally had to write it in another program and cut and paste so I wouldn’t lose it again.)